


About 1,170,000 results (0.34 seconds)

by saltslimes



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, and then prompto manages to get hurt about it, i have been bullied yet agane, its uhhhh, noct gets noctnapped, which is pretty impressive on his part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-29 18:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16749010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltslimes/pseuds/saltslimes
Summary: The car reversed hard and pulled a three-point turn. Prompto stepped out in front of it without really thinking about whether or not he was able to stop a car with his body. He rolled off the side of the hood. The roar of the retreating engine echoed in his ears, just drowning out the high-pitched whine of sudden tinnitus.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This plot was manufactured for you by the lovely gnine! and therefore she can be blamed for all the crimes in this fic, except the grammar crimes which were obviously all me
> 
> it was gonna be a one shot and then it got away from me and also its gnines fault

Blood ran down the game-over screen. Prompto snorted.

“Dude you are genuinely, like I don’t know if this is treason or something but you suck so bad at this.”

“It’s definitely treason and I’m gonna have you executed.” Noctis scrubbed a hand over his face. Realistically, you don’t get _better_ at hour six of arcade games, you just get a headache, but that didn’t stop them from trying. Prompto took the plastic gun out of Noct’s hand and stepped up.

“You’re coming to the thing on Friday, right?”

“Oh, uh.”

“I know you don’t have work, I asked you like three times.” Noctis didn’t say it in an accusatory tone or anything but he sounded… serious.

“Yeah, I don’t, but I should probably study.” Prompto kept his eyes fixed on the screen. Headshot, headshot, next enemy. Noctis sighed through his nose.

“I don’t get it.”

“Um, I just think it would probably be better if I didn’t come.”

“Why? It’s a big boring party and it’ll be way more fun if you’re there.”

“Yeah, for you but it’s not… I mean, what does Ignis think. Or your dad?” Mentioning the king in casual conversation still made Prompto’s heart kind of slam against his chest extra hard, but of course Noct didn’t even blink.

“They don’t care, as long as I’m there and I’m not sleeping or insulting any dignitaries.”

“I mean, I guess.”  Prompto lined up the next shot and there was a sound of shattering glass and half the people in the arcade were instantly screaming.

“Oh, shit,” Noctis said. Prompto turned, following Noct’s line of sight. One of the panels in the skylight was missing--it had rained over the middle of the arcade.

“Whoa,” Prompto said. People were streaming out and a group of men in masks and body armor were walking against the current, totally focussed on Noct. “Dude, you gotta go.” Prompto tugged on Noct’s jacket sleeve, feeling kind of like an idiot or a guy who was about to puke up his heart. Noctis said nothing. His eyes flicked in the direction of the exit.

“Okay your highness,” the guy leading the charge called, “this can be really easy. You just come with us, nice and easy.”

“What’s easy about like, you already shot the ceiling out?” Noctis said. There was a shout from the other side of the room and a shaking security guard just pouring with sweat dashed up and stopped short, holding his gun out with shaking arms.

“You--hey--drop your weapons, right now!” he shouted. Noctis blinked in what had to be disbelief. The guy in charge just snorted, but he turned his gun on the security guard, at which time the guy fired, missed, evidently, and Noct warped up close to one of the guys and smashed his weapon up into his face.

Prompto dived for the third dude and managed to tackle him to the ground and there was a sound like Noct warping again and the smell of spent magic in the air but he was on the ground fighting to not get his face blown off and the guy successfully yanked Prompto’s head into the old popcorn-smelling carpet. But he hit it forehead first, and the forehead is supposed to be the strongest part of the skull, so he counted that as pretty okay. It was gritty and sticky at the same time, which was hardly the thing to be focussing on and then the guy shoved Prompto off and before he could get his bearings there was a boot on his throat.

No pressure at first, but as soon as he twitched the guy started to step down and he felt his throat press shut and the incredible urge to cough. He blinked at the empty blue sky through the missing skylight panel.

“Come out or your buddy over here gets his brains on the carpet.”

Prompto fought to take a breath. There had to be some way to signal Noct to get out but he was blanking, it was like sitting down in a test he hadn’t studied for at all. Magic in the air again, and he heard Noctis.

“Okay! Take it easy.”

Prompto thrashed against the boot, grabbed the guy’s leg. He bent down, grabbed a fistful of Prompto’s hair and pulled up, then cracked his head against the floor. He blinked in a world without color.

And again, and again, and then he was able to stand up. He looked for Noctis frantically, just in time to see him and his captors rounding the corner out of the arcade. Broken glass crunched under his feet. He raced down the stairs--footsteps echoed in front of him. But by the time he got out they were already shoving Noct into a car.

The street was crowded with panicked people who had poured out of the mall. Prompto shoved through and stumbled off the curb.

The car reversed hard and pulled a three-point turn. Prompto stepped out in front of it without really thinking about whether or not he was able to stop a car with his body. He rolled off the side of the hood. The roar of the retreating engine echoed in his ears, just drowning out the high-pitched whine of sudden tinnitus.

 _Get up_. It wasn’t a full-formed thought but more like a demanding instinct. He still somehow felt starved of air, felt like he was ten feet from the surface and just starting to swim up.

The first shout came out as nothing. People were hurrying over but he was already pushing himself up off the tarmac, and his phone was, right, not in his pocket. In his bag. Upstairs. In the arcade.

“I need--” he turned to the closest person, a woman who was in the middle of asking him something. Too hard to hear, too late to comprehend it anyways, but she didn’t look hurt, and she was standing up and talking. “Phone, can someone, I need anyone to lend me their phone, please.” A few of the crowd backed up with concerned expressions but the woman dug hers from her sweater pocket and offered it out. She backed up two steps before Prompto could reach for it.

“Come out of the road,” she said. Prompto blinked and followed her into the dispersing crowd. Sirens were wailing in the distance, but they were too late and the wrong people anyways. Gladio’s number was a total mystery (he didn’t even have it in his phone) but when he’d started hanging out he got a kind of menacing letter from the crownsguard at large with Ignis and Cor’s numbers and a lot of details about what kind of emergency situation warranted using them.

And Prompto wasn’t like… crazy or anything. He didn’t memorize people’s numbers usually. It was just that the next week Noctis dropped his phone in the toilet at school and he had this sudden realization that for all his coolness and how smart and shitty he was, Noctis was kind of… like… not designed for the outside world.

So he wrote them on the inside of his phone case and he memorized them before the week was out. Just in case.

It rang three times before Cor picked up, and he literally said: “What?” So Prompto had to quickly get his tongue to remember being a tongue. In the next second he was able to talk.

[<>][<>][<>]

Gladio tried to stop cracking his knuckles. Tried being the operative word. As nervous tics go it wasn’t that bad, but it annoyed _him_ and it pretty obviously annoyed Ignis, who had taken to sighing and adjusting his glasses each time Gladio cupped his fist in his hand.

“And the approximate height of the third attacker?” Ignis was running through the entire situation again, this time with a fine-toothed comb. Prompto had sagged slightly between questions but he sat up straighter.

“Six feet. He was shorter than the leader.”

Gladio strode out of the room. Cor was on the phone in the hallway, holding up a single finger to a waiting member of the crownsguard. This was the kind of thing you train for, keep training for, spend time poring over the intricacies of it. Gladio hadn’t thought about how much useless standing around there would be.

Interviewing witnesses was done, and he could stand around while Ignis got Prompto to relay what happened in _painstaking_ detail but he doubted it would get anything done.

Cor hung up his phone with a hard snap (Gladio had to admit, as insane as having a flip-phone was, it was kinda badass).

“Yeah, we have tracking up. These guys can’t be with the empire; they’re _serious_ amateurs.”

“They didn’t even ditch his phone?”

“Could be a ploy to throw us off but we have more than the manpower to follow a lead. Plus description of the car.”

“Should I tell Ignis to stop grilling Prompto?” Gladio asked, jerking his head in the direction of the open door of the interrogation room-turned-briefing-space.

“Tell the kid to hang around. We’ll tell him if we need something from him.” Cor’s phone was ringing in his hand. Gladio headed back inside to interrupt Ignis from a probing question about the type of boots the kidnappers were wearing. As if anyone would remember that.

“Hey, Ignis, we need you,” Gladio said. Ignis flipped the folder he was holding shut and stood up swiftly. Prompto buried a cough in the crook of his arm before jumping up to follow.

“Uh, Prompto, you can just… hang out for a bit,” Gladio said. “I think everyone who needed details has them.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah!” Prompto licked his lips. Gladio spared him a glance over his shoulder as he and Ignis headed down the hall.

“Well he’s dedicated, you can say that,” Gladio mumbled as they rounded the corner. Ignis just nodded absently. He was like a pencil sharpened to a needle point in times like this. Like a machine with only one function. Gladio cracked his knuckles once more for good measure and Ignis seemed to barely suppress a sigh.

[<>][<>][<>]

Prompto found himself in a hall sitting with his back to the wall and staring at a small tear in the paint when the thought occurred that he had no idea what time it was. He blinked, fumbling for his phone before he remembered it was still at the arcade. Lost by now. Best case, it was evidence and he’d get it back. Worst case, Noct was currently dead, and then the phone hardly mattered.

His left hand was throbbing, and he wanted to stay staring at nothing and thinking in static like a TV tuned to a dead channel. But it didn’t go away. When he turned it over to look he realized it was crusted with blood. Ah, the nail had torn off his pinky. When did that even happen?

He dug around in his pockets. One of them turned up a folded kind of squished band-aid. It had little cartoon chocobos on it. It didn’t do anything to help the throbbing but it did make his hand look less disastrous.

It would make sense to just go home, probably. His keys were in his bag but there was the spare under the mat at the back. He’d vacated the hallway where Ignis and Gladio left him, because he was getting in the way of people passing through and barking orders at each other.

At some point he became increasingly aware of his own heartbeat in his ears. There was pain focussed at some point a few inches behind his eyes, some ambiguous zone of his brain or the deep recesses of his sinuses. And breathing sort of hurt. Or really hurt. It was hard to gauge. He trailed the fingers of his good hand against the wall.

There had to be some news by now. Good news or bad news, and Prompto always wanted to hear the bad news as fast as possible because it was the waiting that really killed him. Someone strode down the hall on a phone.

“Yeah, they’re bringing him back now,” she said, and then something Prompto couldn’t catch. He braced against the wall to push up but pain flared in his back. His whole torso felt like shredded garbage. He wheezed slightly. Okay. So standing up was off the table. Just for the moment at least.

He pressed a hand against his chest, trying to ride the pain out.

[<>][<>][<>]

Ignis wasn’t actively shoving Noctis in the direction of the medical wing but he was definitely radiating a shoving kind of energy.

“Calm down, I’m seriously fine. Look, barely scratched.” He held up his slightly bloodied wrists, which didn’t help his point much. Ignis just adjusted his glasses and gestured down the hall. He was strung out and exhausted both at once seemingly. And Gladio was behind them like a big monolith of tense relief.

“Yeah, forgive us for wanting you cleared officially.”

“Whatever. Those guys were seriously like--I was minutes away from escaping when the crownsguard busted in.” Noctis tipped his head to one side to crack his neck and groaned. “Is Prom still up there?”

“Still where?” Ignis asked, not slowing his pace.

“The med wing.”

“No? He doesn’t know that’s where we’re headed,” Gladio said.

“So they let him out already?” That was a relief. The whole car ride, and then being sort of embarrassingly threatened he’d been thinking about the sound of Prompto sliding off the car. Soft thud when he presumably hit the asphalt.

Noctis already knew what they were gonna find on him besides the wrists. His shoulder ached like it was gonna bruise badly. His nose had been bleeding at some point but it wasn’t broken or anything, the pain was pretty much gone.

Ignis didn’t answer right away because he was pulling the door open.

“Let him out?” Gladio said.

“Yeah like. Cleared him.”

“Oh. He never saw the medical staff,” Ignis said. “Why?” He looked back and seemed startled to see Noctis standing rooted to the spot and Gladio huffing in annoyance as he almost walked into him.

“Dude, watch yourself,” Gladio grumbled.

“Because he got hit by a car while they were taking me away? And one of the dudes stepped on his neck before that?”

“We didn’t--” Gladio began and then stopped. “He what?”

“There were EMTs at the scene when we picked him up and took statements,” Ignis said, but he sounded more thoughtful than sure. He had the door still propped open with one arm. “And he didn’t seem visibly injured when we were speaking to him.” There was that little divot between his eyebrows though. Little tell. When Ignis was sounding sure but not being sure.

“You guys didn’t think to like, ask?”

“We were a little more concerned with the whereabouts of the crown prince,” Ignis said evenly.

“And it’s not like he said anything. You’re sure he got hit by the car?”

“Uh, yeah. I was in the car. Where is he then if not up here?” Noctis found himself glancing down the hall as if Prom was going to just materialize. Gladio folded his arms.

“He was… around somewhere. The EMTs probably cleared him before we got there.”

“We need to find him.” Noctis glanced inside, where a nurse was waiting at the reception desk watching this exchange with vague concern. He planted his feet.

“Noctis, can you please--” Ignis started, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Okay. You two find him then. I’ll be up here, waiting.”

“This is not the ideal moment to try ditching your shield.”

“We’re _in_ the Citadel. Send Clarus or someone up to babysit me if you’re so worried. But you either go find Prom or I’m not going in there.”

Ignis and Gladio exchanged a look of silent debate, the one that always made Noct feel like a bit of a bed-wetter. It’s great when people are having face journeys about you while you’re standing right there, like adults spelling out words in front of a toddler.

Finally Ignis sighed.

“Fine,” he said, voice a little clipped. Noctis flipped him a thumbs-up.

“Text me when you know where he is.” And then he finally stepped through to greet the waiting nurse.

[<>][<>][<>]


	2. Chapter 2

Retracing the hallway where they’d left him didn’t turn up Prompto. Gladio asked a few passing people if they’d seen a shrimpy blond kid while Ignis was slamming out detailed texts about incident reports.

“By the D stairwell entrance?”

“Yes. I think,” the woman said. “A young guy, right?”

“About the prince’s age,” Ignis said without looking up.

“Yes, I did see him over there. But that was almost an hour ago.”

“He answer any of your messages?” Gladio asked, while they were crossing an atrium in the direction of the stairwell.

“No. It’s possible his phone has died. It’s been a long day.”

“Well, and he’s probably texting his friends and his parents. Or playing that dumb phone game. How upset is Noct going to be if we can’t find him? Because realistically someone probably told him to go home.”

Ignis didn’t answer. He’d come to a stop, eyes fixed on a random point in the terrazzo floor. Gladio nudged him.

“You okay?”

Rather than reply, Ignis tipped his head to one side. Gladio tried to follow his line of sight.

“Is that blood?” Ignis asked, indicating. Gladio took a step closer to see brown droplets peppered on the floor--they blended in so well he hadn’t seen them at first.

“Uh. Maybe.”

They rounded the corner. At the far end of the hallway, indeed beside the doors to the D stairwell, Prompto was sitting with one leg up and his head propped on his knee.

“Hey, Prompto,” Gladio called. Prompto looked up sharply. His face was--well he was pale already. But he looked paler than normal. Prompto licked his lips and opened his mouth, but no words came out. A weird rasp that cut off in a cough. Ignis was walking subtly faster.

“Prompto, are you alright?” he asked. Prompto coughed harder and nodded vigorously.

“Is he back? Is he okay?” he asked.

“He’s getting checked out now, he wanted us to find you,” Gladio said. He offered Prompto a hand up. Prompto took it immediately. And right as Gladio pulled, Ignis took a step kind of forward and opened his mouth to say something. Prompto made a sound like something was tearing in him. He curled inward on himself, almost collapsing back onto the floor. Gladio had to grab him with both arms to keep him up.

“Oh man, I knew getting up was gonna be bad,” Prompto wheezed.

“Did you get seen by the EMTs at the scene?” Ignis asked. He put a hand under Prompto’s chin and turned his face up, checking for bruises the way he checked Noctis for dirt before they entered a royal event.

“What? No, Cor told me to stay put and then you guys showed up and I was giving statements. But I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Ignis said crisply.

“If I let go he’s literally gonna fall right over,” Gladio said. Prompto’s face reddened, but when he tried to make an indignant noise he seemed to choke on the sound. There was a bruise blooming on his neck. 

“You got hit by a car and didn’t think to--you didn’t ask anyone for medical attention?”

“They weren’t there for that. We had to find Noct,” Prompto said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Ignis opened his mouth, seemed to think better of whatever he was about to say and closed it again. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Can you walk?”

“Yes,” Prompto said while Gladio was already saying no.

“I’ll let you go and you show me you can even walk three steps,” Gladio said.

“Let’s not do that,” Ignis said. Gladio rolled his eyes.

“I was kidding. Take the stick out.” He hoisted Prompto into his arms. Whether the gasp was from surprise or pain or both he decided not to speculate. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah. You definitely don’t have to do this,” Prompto said. He fisted a hand in the front of Gladio’s shirt like he was expecting to be dropped.

There were a few members of the crownsguard stationed outside the med wing, and inside Clarus was chatting quietly with an orderly. He raised an eyebrow at the sight of Gladio carrying Prompto.

“What happened here?” he asked, as the nurse came out from behind the desk.

“You could seriously put me down. I’m fine,” Prompto said, but his voice was ragged and his breathing sounded worse. 

“If you want to see Noctis you’ll need to get checked out,” Ignis said, which was kind of just evil, but had the effect of shutting Prompto up instantly. The nurse had summoned a wheelchair from somewhere, so Gladio put him down.

“Ignis, it’s good you’re here, I wanted a word before anyone gets into official debriefing.”

“Of course.” Ignis threw a glance back at Gladio as if to say: your problem now, and abandoned them to follow Clarus from the room. Gladio hesitated. The nurse was turning Prompto to wheel him into the next room but the look he gave Gladio was utter terror.

When he was still a kid their dad took them hunting. Just the once. Gladio didn’t hate it but he didn’t care for it much either. Iris protested so much they never went again. He’d been split off from them, wandering around past the tents and the camping area, just kicking at rotten logs and thinking about catching beetles.

He couldn’t remember how he found the fox in the trap. Could have been the sound, might have been the blood. It was a memory warped like acetate sheets under high heat. Gladio often felt like his whole childhood was the aftermath of a spoon in the microwave; some stuff had held up surprisingly well and a lot of things you’d expect to stay intact were utterly destroyed, voided from memory or alien and unreal when he could recall them.

The fox was nice and clear, even if everything before and after it was nebulous; the year and his age and the length of Iris’ hair all occluded. He couldn’t really remember a time when he wasn’t ready to kill under the right circumstances, but he didn’t like looking at something trapped. Prompto looked trapped. Pinned in the wheelchair like a butterfly to corkboard.

Gladio didn’t ask, he just followed when they wheeled him back, took a seat in the exam room while they waited for the doctor to show up. Prompto needed the nurse’s help getting onto the exam table. He was flagging now, like he was giving in under some massive weight. 

“Oh, what happened here?” The nurse asked, lifting one of Prompto’s hands. It was kind of… crusty with blood.

“Fuck,” Gladio said.

“Oh, it’s--don’t,” Prompto started, but the nurse unwound the bandaid and blinked as if in disbelief.

“This got torn off?” she said. Gladio almost stood up but he managed to remain seated. He was tracking Prompto’s face, looking for an expression that would… add up.

“I didn’t notice when it happened, I don’t… know…”

“You were probably in shock, honey,” she said. At some point the doctor breezed in and started picking out more horrors. Under his shirt Prompto was a fucking mess. He looked like he’d been run  _ over _ , not into. 

“I bet you’re not feeling great, huh?” the doctor said, tossing her gloves into the garbage. “Don’t worry. We’re gonna get you on some painkillers and you’ll be feeling much better.”

Gladio didn’t really believe in tempting fate but if he did, well. That would be it.

It was less than thirty minutes later that he was in nice, serenely decorated room, standing in the open bathroom doorway watching Prompto shaking beside the toilet.

“Why didn’t you say this shit happens to you on painkillers?”

“I’ve never--” Prompto paused to heave again, “--had them before. Just over-the-counter stuff.”

“What? You broke your elbow like, a few months ago, they didn’t prescribe you anything?”

Prompto spat into the toilet and winced, pressing a hand to his chest.

“Can I get you back to bed yet?” Gladio asked.

“I need another second.” Prompto took a long breath through his nose. “They were too expensive.”

Gladio opened his mouth and closed it again. Then the door banged open so hard it hit the back wall. Noctis was holding a juicebox, wearing a hospital wristband that looked like he’d made an attempt at chewing it off, and looking furious and stressed at the same time. On Noctis that amounted to barely any expression, but Gladio knew him well enough.

“Prom!” he said. Prompto’s immediate response to this was to try to stand, which was obviously a bad idea. Gladio dived into the bathroom at the thought of him hitting his head on something porcelain or metal.

“Whoa there,” he said. Luckily Prompto had made it as far as shoving himself half up and then sagged back to his knees.

“Hey what was that about how he probably went home?” Noctis said. 

“You’re okay,” Prompto gasped.

“Yeah, and you’re clearly not.” Noct chucked his empty juicebox in the direction of the garbage can. It bounced off the rim.

“You ready to go back to bed?” Gladio asked.

“What’d the doctors say?” Noct said.

“They said he has bruised ribs and a minor head injury. And his throat is messed up. And then they said he’s in the small percentage of people who react badly to painkillers.” Gladio helped Prompto back to the bed without letting go of him at any point. He’d learned his lesson earlier when Prompto tried to walk to the bathroom and hit the deck without warning.

It felt like the day had been going on for at least 72 hours thus far. Gladio dropped into the chair beside Prompto’s bed as Noctis sat down on the edge of the mattress.

“If I go get some coffee can you both manage to not get kidnapped or injured any further?” Gladio asked. Noctis shot him a look but Prompto didn’t even say anything. He listed into the bed like he was about to give up the fucking ghost. Gladio put a hand on Noct’s shoulder.

“Don’t work him up, okay? He’s gotta take it easy.”

“Yeah, obviously,” Noctis snapped. 

Of course, Gladio never made it to get coffee. He ran into Ignis instead, and he seemed just as pissed as Noct had been, though a little less obvious about it.

“I just had an enlightening conversation with Prompto’s parents.”

“Oh?” Gladio almost didn’t want to know at this point.

“They were more concerned about who was footing the bill for his medical expenses than the fact that he was injured.”

“I think his family’s struggling. Prompto told me he never picked up his prescription when his elbow was broken because it was too much.”

Ignis pursed his lips. He actually looked like he was going to hit something, which was a new one on him.

“I can assure you, Prompto’s parents are not in any kind of financial situation. The marshal was more than thorough in his background checks.”

“So then it’s just that…” Gladio huffed instead of finishing that sentence. Ignis took his glasses off and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Hey. Take a break. Go take a shower. I can handle this.”

“Someone at the front told me they were keeping Prompto overnight.”

“Yeah, he didn’t react well to painkillers. But Noct should get some sleep  _ not _ in the med wing and you should too.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Ignis said. He sighed. Gladio resisted the urge to punch him in the shoulder, if only because he never reacted to that the way Gladio wanted.

It took a lot of bargaining to get Noctis out of the room. The final agreement involved Gladio somehow getting signed up for full time Prompto-babysitting, and as soon as he was discharged Prompto was to be dropped off at Noct’s apartment.

Gladio was able to convince Iris to sweet-talk their dad into grabbing him some stuff. Prompto spent two hours profusely apologizing (for what wasn’t clear) and then conked out like he’d been hit over the head. Gladio took the opportunity to use the spare bed and catch some sleep. Prompto was still asleep when he woke up at some ungodly hour. He went to buy a can of coffee from one of the vending machines.

When he got back Prompto wasn’t in bed. He checked the bathroom, had a small heart-attack, blazed back into the room in a panic and then spotted him sitting by the window. He had one leg up, probably uncomfortable. Or maybe the only way to get comfortable.

“Hey, bud?” Gladio stopped at the foot of the bed. For some reason he didn’t know if he should come closer. Prompto was half-pressed against the window, looking down at the royal gardens below. Gladio tread closer and Prompto flinched as if seeing him for the first time.

“What are you doing here?” He rubbed one eye. “What time is it?”

“It’s late as shit. Noct wouldn’t go home unless he knew someone was looking out for you.”

“Oh. You can go, you know. I’m okay, really. I don’t even feel sick anymore.”

“Yeah, Noct isn’t as flexible as you, unfortunately. So I’m sticking it out.” As if to further illustrate this, he dropped down into the chair and cracked open his book. Prompto stayed entirely still. Gladio was able to put up with watching him out of the corner of his eye for five minutes. But before he needed to say anything Prompto tipped his head forward to rest against his knee, hiding his eyes.

“Gladio?”

“M’yeah?”

“Can you help me get back to bed?”

“Yes I can.” 

Lifting Prompto was like nothing. More than anything else he had to be careful not to jostle him. This time he didn’t take a handful of Gladio’s shirt, just laid his head against his chest. Maybe he was too tired to hang on. Maybe he wasn’t afraid this time.

[<>][<>][<>]

Prompto woke up an indeterminate period of time later with too much saliva in his mouth and his shirt sweat-clung to his chest. He hit the carpet on the way off the couch but shoved himself to his feet quickly.

There wasn’t time to make it to the bathroom--that became clear the instant he stood up. He hurtled across the room to throw up in the kitchen sink. Beige and off-orange ran down the metal on the far side of the sink. Prompto slumped against the counter. He needed to lift his head. He just puked in the  _ sink _ , people wash dishes in there.

He needed bleach or paper towels, or both maybe, and if he could just lift his head back up he could at least turn on the tap and rinse most of it down.

“Aw, shit.” He heard, and shoved himself up on shaking arms. Noctis was by the fridge, he must have just come around the corner. His hair was sticking up all at odd angles, still gelled but totally disorganized. He hurried over and put a hand to Prompto’s shamefully sweaty back. But he didn’t recoil or even comment.

“Did you just wake up? Damn, we should have thought to bring you a bucket.”

“S-sorry,” Prompto managed to get out. Noctis huffed.

“What are you sorry for?” he asked. Prompto didn’t have an answer for that. He let Noctis help him into one of the chairs at the island. 

“I don’t know. The sink. I’m gonna clean it, I just need like--a minute.”

“Dude.” Noctis sounded indignant--or maybe angry? Prompto searched his face. Sometimes he felt like he really knew Noctis, maybe more than anyone else. Sometimes he felt like understanding Noct was a house of cards and at any moment something would shift and he’d have to start all over. The longer he sat there the stronger the need got. The guilt and the shame. Someone had to clean the sink, and it was right there, the kitchen was burning with the smell of stomach acid.

“I still don’t get how you do that,” Noctis said. He was looking at Prompto like he was a puzzle, had his head tipped to one side curiously.

“Do what?” Prompto said thickly. It started to spill over, first nothing but then tears. He scrubbed at one eye with the back of his hand.

“Care that much.” Noctis sighed. He cracked his knuckles absently. “You’re like the nicest person I ever met and you don’t even have to try. And you care about  _ everything _ . I see you care about stuff so much it wrecks you.”

Prompto didn’t know what to say to that. He tried to swallow but it was impossible. Noct slid out of his seat and came over to wrap his arms around him. Some part of Prompto was still all pinpricks, all thin terror and sick from the hospital. But after a second or so he started to melt in. Noctis smelled like sweat and the metallic tang of energy drinks. He smelled like citrus hair gel and overpriced cologne and fresh linens. Prompto buried his face in his shoulder and tried and failed to not get snot on him.

They stayed like that for a while. Prompto kept waiting for Noct to break the hug, but he didn’t. They stayed like that until Prompto started shaking just from the effort of holding himself up, and Ignis came through the front door anyways.

“I got the--oh.” His expression was soft for some reason. Softer than Prompto could recall ever seeing. “Might be wise to get Prompto back on the couch,” he said.

Ignis was making curry, but he was quiet in the kitchen, and Prompto drifted. When he woke up someone had their hand in his hair.

“Shh. You’re okay. Sleep a little longer if you want.” That was Gladio’s low voice, and his warm hand in Prompto’s hair. An errant tear leaked out of one eye and dripped into the couch cushion. But no one saw. And it didn’t hurt. Nothing hurt, at that moment.

**Author's Note:**

> yes i am being coy and its not that i ran out of title ideas or some shit you know sometimes its fun to put a cool easter egg in your title like halt and catch fire used to be called opcodes 0x9D and 0xDD because that was the real instruction that would cause a machine to "halt and catch fire" and this was very funny of me but no one got it so i changed it to something that sounds cool  
> i did the opposite of that for soap,, kind of
> 
> anyways bye haha  
> [tumblr](saltslimes.tumblr.com)


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